


thought we were through, me and you

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Never Have I Ever (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Relationship, Sharing Clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25197208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: He hooks his finger into the cuff of her right sleeve and lifts. “How long have you been hoarding this one from me?”She snatches her arm back. “I beg your pardon?”“Oh, don’t play clueless. Everyone here knows about your predilection for stealing my clothes because you think they’re so stylish and cool.”
Relationships: Ben Gross & Devi Vishwakumar, Ben Gross/Devi Vishwakumar, Fabiola Torres & Devi Vishwakumar & Eleanor Wong
Comments: 32
Kudos: 119





	thought we were through, me and you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flashlightinacave](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashlightinacave/gifts).



> Leila! We've only been friends a short while now, and it's been nothing but lovely. I hope you have an awesome birthday.
> 
> Bethany sends on her well-wishes, too! She beta'd this in record time. <3
> 
> **Relevant Links:** [one](https://catty-words.tumblr.com/post/622228476316008448/a-concept-that-makes-me-wish-i-could-draw-devi-is), [two](https://catty-words.tumblr.com/post/622304559261483008/ps-you-know-how-i-feel-about-that-patched-jean)

“Fab, don’t look now,” Devi says, “but Cameron is headed right this way.”

“Cameron?” Fabiola’s eyes widen. “Cameron Wade? As in, the girl Eve hooked up with after the cast party?”

“The very same.”

“And she does not look happy,” Eleanor says, grinning into her cup.

“What?” Fabiola whirls around.

Devi slaps at her arm. “I told you not to look.”

She can pinpoint the exact moment Fabiola and Cameron make eye contact because Fabiola starts to pound her fist against her thigh.

“Well,” Devi says, looking over at Eleanor, who nods. “Good luck.”

“You guys,” Fabiola says. Or, whines, really.

“No offence, Fab, but I’m far too sober for a round of Who Has the Biggest Strap. So, you’re on your own.”

“You can’t just leave me to—oh, hey, Cameron.”

“Fabiola,” Camera says with a nod, her jaw tense. “Fabiola’s cronies.”

“Always a pleasure,” Devi says, saluting her and then slipping her arm through Eleanor’s.

The two of them giggle as they dart around Cameron and then, once they’re in the clear, break out into a jog, kicking up sand as they go.

“We’re bad friends,” Eleanor says once they’ve slowed.

“Speak for yourself,” Devi says, and then drains the last couple drops of beer in her cup. “I spent the entirety of winter break helping Fabiola purge Eve from her life, and then, like, two days after we get back, they were at it all over again.”

“Yeah, but I think Sappho would be proud of our girl,” Eleanor says, leaning her head against Devi’s shoulder as they walk over to the keg.

“I think if she finds a girlfriend at MIT, I’m never answering my phone at two a.m.”

Eleanor pulls away from Devi with a gasp. “You’d violate the sacred rites of sisterhood and ignore a two a.m. distress call?”

“Maybe,” Devi says with a shrug. “Depends on how demanding the Princeton curriculum turns out to be.”

“Or on how many parties you can find within walking distance of your dorm on any given night.”

Devi grins, dancing around a junior who’s playing Frisbee a little too enthusiastically. “On how many hot people agree to sleep with me on any given night.”

“Sha,” Eleanor says, scoffing.

Devi comes to a halt. “Um, explain that ‘ _sha_ ’ immediately.”

“Oh, come on, Devi,” Eleanor says, shaking her head. “We all know you’re not as promiscuous as you talk yourself up to be.”

“You’re calling my sex appeal into question?” Devi clucks her tongue. “I can’t believe you’d violate the sacred rites of sisterhood like that.”

Eleanor nudges her onward. “Not saying you couldn’t have anyone you wanted, just that you tend to want one person at a time. You had the same boyfriend for seventy-five percent of our high school careers.”

Devi frowns as an especially sharp wind flings itself across the beach, making her shiver. “It wasn’t seventy-five percent.”

“Fine,” Eleanor says. “Sixty-three.”

“Where are you getting these figures?”

“I’m rounding!”

“Obviously!”

They come upon the keg and step up behind Tiffany Noble in line. 

Devi casts a longing glance back at the fire as goosebumps rise to attention on her upper arms. Fabiola’s listening to Cameron talk with a pinched expression.

“It’s kinda funny that, of the three of us, Fab had the most tumultuous, high-school-romance-novel love life,” Eleanor says, her eyes following Devi’s.

“She is the least suited to appreciate the gift she was given,” Devi says. “I mean, the Sherman Oaks High lesbians upstaged the drama department in every way.”

“Okay, jeez,” Eleanor says, accepting her turn at the keg from Tiffany. “There’s no reason for you to rub it in.”

Smiling, Devi pulls out her phone. As another chill runs down her spine, she swipes left to check the weather widget. It’s only gonna get colder as the sun goes down…

“Hey, I’m gonna run to my car,” Devi says. “Do you need anything from your purse?”

Eleanor shakes her head.

After handing over her empty cup, Devi makes her way toward the pathway that leads to the parking lot, nodding to Beth, Rosalia, and a guy whose name escapes her as she passes them.

That’s been happening to her more and more—the details of high school slipping through her fingers. It’s only a week into summer break, and she already can’t remember whether the football team made it to State or if that’d been the year before or the topics everyone picked for their final French projects or if she ever remembered to return Mr. Shapiro’s copy of _A People’s History of The United States_ to him.

As she walks up the imperfectly parked line of cars, she recites her class schedule from freshman year to herself, just to prove she can, and pointedly avoids looking into any of the windows she passes. The sun is not quite down, but she knows from experience that neither patience nor modesty is her classmates’ strongest suit.

The truck that’s next to her little sedan is cockeyed, and Devi has to shuffle sideways to get between the two cars, fumbling with her keys while trying not to get dirt all over her dress.

There’s a stack of binders and notebooks that’d been in her locker for the better part of the year on the backseat, and she shoves them across the bench so she can get far enough inside to let the door fall closed behind her. Immediately, she feels several degrees warmer, the still air of the car a welcome reprieve from the wind.

She kicks a pair of flats out of her way and under the passenger seat before leaning down to sift through the chaos. She’s pretty sure she has the orange and black blanket Eleanor had made her when she’d gotten her acceptance email in here somewhere.

While she tosses aside a wrinkled pair of sweats, her mind snags on whether she’d had biology right after lunch or geometry. She sighs roughly.

It’s not as though her high school experience isn’t worth remembering, after all. True, it’s absolutely nothing like her freshman self had pictured as the ideal but, in a lot of ways, she’s relieved the Devi of four years ago hasn’t gotten everything she’d thought she’d wanted.

Devi spots orange under a crumpled old English paper, grabs hold, and unearths the blanket. In doing so, she sends a landslide of garbage and school junk tumbling through the backseat. While everything shifts, her eyes fall on something that makes her heart pull itself up into her throat.

Her foot is actually planted on one of the sleeves, so she has to contort herself to pull it up from the ground, but then Ben’s jean jacket is sitting in her lap, the distressed denim soft under her fingers.

And here it is, the perfect example: freshman Devi would have been gobsmacked that an article of clothing belonging to Ben Gross could make its way into her car.

She tries to think back on when it must have happened—when’s the last time she remembers him wearing this one, with its light wash and thick elbow patches—but nothing comes to her.

And that’s kind of distressing. Because she can stand to forget her locker combination and the way Mrs. Grant always pronounces chocolate in some bastardized French accent and what color dress she wore to the prom in the giddy haze of moving on to the Next Big Thing, but she doesn’t want afternoons she’d spent with Ben to fall wholly out of her mind.

Frowning, she rubs the tip of the collar between her thumb and pointer finger. The denim is warm from being in her car for—for however long.

She shifts forward on the seat and flips the jacket around her shoulders before shoving her arms through. A faint whiff of greasy fast food clings to it, but even stronger is the undefinable smell that makes Devi’s head whirl with the impression of being over at the Grosses’ house.

This probably crosses some kind of boundary, she thinks, even as she undoes the button on the cuff of the left sleeve and rolls it back once, twice.

There’s a little heart inked into the fabric, lopsided and at the curve of the wrist, and Devi knows she’s the one who put it there, even if she doesn’t remember when.

After rolling back the other sleeve so her hands are free, she pushes the door open, forgetting about the awkward angle of the truck next to her and knocking into it hard enough that she leaves a little ding.

A giggle floats up out of her. Maybe she’s a little less sober than she’d realized. Fabiola’s gonna have to be the one to drive them back to Eleanor’s house later.

“Devi!”

She looks up from the scuff of paint she’s left on the black truck to see Fabiola and Eleanor weaving through the parking lot over to her.

“Do you think this is the kind of deal where I have to leave my information?”

Fabiola and Eleanor come to a skidding halt at the front of her car.

Fabiola cocks her head. “What?”

“Oh,” Devi says, standing and shoving her door closed. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“What are you doing?” Eleanor asks her.

“I told you I was cold,” Devi says.

Eleanor’s brow wrinkles. “No you didn’t.”

“Oh.” Devi slides out from between the cars. “Well, I was cold.”

“Where did you get this?” Fabiola asks, reaching over to finger the little patch on the collar. “It’s nice.”

“My backseat.”

“No, I—”

“Did Cameron give up Operation Make Fab Jealous?” Devi asks before Fabiola finishes her push for info. It’s not like her friends would judge her—well, not harshly or anything—but she doesn’t feel like explaining herself again. The whats and whys of the breakup are well-covered ground.

Her diversion works. Fabiola groans, and turns to start walking back to the beach.

Eleanor giggles.

“What?” Devi asks, falling into step behind them. “What happened?”

“Cameron propositioned her,” Eleanor says.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Eleanor says, giggling even harder.

Fabiola shoves at her.

“No,” Devi says. “I’m gonna need more than that. _What_?”

Fabiola sighs. “Apparently, Eve casually slipped my name into conversation yesterday, and now Cameron’s worried there’s something going on between us again.”

“And she just offered up this very exciting information, free of charge?” Devi asks, sneakers sinking into the sand as they reach the pathway. She shuffles closer to Fabiola so she can grab onto her shoulder.

“Oh, it cost her,” Eleanor says. “All her dignity.”

Fabiola glances back at Devi, smiling without humor as she explains. “She proposed a truce.”

Devi raises her eyebrows. “Is that what we’re calling it?”

Fabiola juts out her chin. “Yes, it is.”

Eleanor smirks down into her cup.

By the time they reach the beach, it’s that weird moment of dusk where the sun has set, but its light lingers, the sky a gradient of purple and yellow. The smoky bonfire aroma hangs thick in the air down here, and Devi pulls the jacket tight around herself, inhaling deeply.

“So, what did you say?” she asks Fabiola.

She shakes her head, stopping to pull a water bottle out of a cooler. “I told her I’d get back to her.”

Devi pulls up, a dripping can of beer from the cooler in her hand. “Wait, does that mean you’re considering it?”

“Of course not!” Fabiola says, stomping off toward the ocean.

Eleanor tuts. “Squandered.”

Devi widens her eyes at her. “Totally.”

They catch up to her further down the beach. 

“So why didn’t you just say no?” Devi asks.

Fabiola rounds on her. “You know what, the next time someone who’s usually really mean to you asks _you_ to have sex with them and your ex-girlfriend, you and I can talk about how elegantly you handled it.”

Devi snorts, holding up her hands in surrender. “Fine. Point made.”

“Thank you,” Fabiola says, letting out a huffy breath and crossing her arms.

Smiling, Devi cracks open her beer.

“Can we please consider getting closer to the fire?” Eleanor asks. “It’s a bit nippy out here.”

“Wind and fire,” Fabiola says. “Tricky combination.”

The mention of the chill heightens Devi’s awareness of her numbing fingers on the ice-cold beer can. She switches it over to her other hand before shoving her newly freed hand into the pocket of the jean jacket.

It’s at that moment that she feels it, the sensation like fingertips brushing through the fine hairs at the back of her neck. She turns, eyes scanning the groupings of people chatting and laughing and totally oblivious to her until— _there_.

Ben Gross, his expression a foghorn reaching her even through the chaos of the sea.

Devi’s never managed to get a lasting handle on her impulsive nature, especially when it comes to Ben. Which is why she waggles her eyebrows at him in response.

He smirks, giving her a near-imperceptible nod.

She turns away then, but her pulse beats hard and eager against the column of her throat, in the hollow behind her ears, in the pads of her fingers.

“…just saying there are other options,” Eleanor’s saying. “Like standing downwind or scooching at least a few feet to our collective Stage Left.”

“Wait,” Devi says. “The ocean is our audience?”

“Um, duh,” Eleanor says. “Do you know how many mermaids and sirens there are out there who’d love to see a good show? Not to mention, the number of undiscovered species on the ocean floor who need to find their connection to humanity somehow—and what better way than through theatre!?”

“Okay,” Fabiola says. “I’m cutting you off before this turns into a one-woman show.”

“It’s about to anyway,” Eleanor says, pointing in Fabiola’s face. “Any requests?”

“ _In the Heights_.”

The contents of Devi’s stomach get tossed around like they’re a load of clothes in a drier at the sound of Ben’s voice coming up behind her.

“Ah, the overlooked stepchild of the Miranda _oeuvre_ ,” Eleanor says. “I like where your head’s at.”

“Hey, Ben,” Fabiola says, waving.

He nods back. “Fab.”

“Ben,” Devi says with affected chilliness.

“David,” he says back. And then, because he never was one for being coy, hooks his finger into the cuff of her right sleeve and lifts. “How long have you been hoarding this one from me?”

She snatches her arm back. “I beg your pardon?”

“Oh, don’t play clueless. Everyone here knows about your predilection for stealing my clothes because you think they’re so stylish and cool.”

“It’s Ben’s jacket?” Fabiola asks, narrowing her eyes as she scrutinizes Devi for a moment. “Weird of you not to say.”

“Not really,” Eleanor says, stopping mid-vocal warmup to do so.

Devi shakes her head at both of them, a Let’s-Just-Talk-About-It-Later gesture, before rolling her eyes over in Ben’s direction. He’s smiling and it’s a cross between amused and smug that Devi still can’t believe she finds as charming as she does.

“I have never stolen your clothes because they look cool,” she tells him.

“Is that so?” He’s looking her square in the eye.

She looks back. “It is.”

Fabiola sighs. “You said something about moving closer to the fire?”

Devi glances away from Ben to see Fabiola bugging her eyes out at Eleanor.

“Yes, thank you!” Eleanor says, clasping onto Fabiola’s hand and skipping away. “Finally!”

“Alone at last,” Ben says.

She turns back to him, pointedly eyeing their surroundings. “In a manner of speaking.”

His lips twitch with the promise of a smile, and Devi gets stuck staring at them just a second longer than she should, strictly speaking.

It’s just, she used to spend a lot of time with them and now she doesn’t and she misses them.

“Come on,” he says, and he’s staring at the collar of the jacket, at her neck. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Which one?”

He thinks on that for a beat before tilting his head and pouting out his lip. (Teasing her, definitely teasing her.) “You don’t think my clothes look cool?”

She snorts, and he smiles.

“Okay, okay, say no more.”

“Wise choice.”

His eyebrows tick up, and she finds herself shifting her weight, shuffling a step forward.

“So why do you do it then?”

“You really need me to spell it out for you?”

“I think you should, yeah,” he says, smirking at her like he knows exactly what the most earnest answer is.

And hell, he’s almost certainly _right_. So she does the only thing she’s found to do that beats the smug bastard at his game: she says it anyway.

“They smell like you.”

Red splotches bloom across his cheeks, and she scrunches her nose. Jackpot.

“Even this one, that I haven’t seen in at least a year?”

“Actually, yeah.” She holds her arm up under his nose.

He cranes his neck away from it. “Please tell me you don’t think I smell like the inside of a McDonald’s.”

She drops her arm, shaking her head. “You caught me. The reason I was with you for so long was just because you smell like hamburgers.”

He nods somberly. “I was just a piece of meat to you. I knew it.”

Her laugh is a little sharp, like it’s coming on the tail of her gargling glass.

She knows that she wants college to be a total clean slate; she’s actually never felt more certain about anything in her life. But even though she’s dragged her sleeve across said slate without a moment of hesitation, motes of chalk dust and the stubborn impression of what’d been written there remain.

Ben winces, just a little around the eyes, and she knows he’s right there with her.

“I don’t remember,” she says, breaking the moment of mutual reflection and gesturing at the jacket. “How long I’ve had this. Just found it on the floor of my car.”

He hums, taking a second longer before he’s present with her again. “Ah, well. Explains the smell.”

There’s this slightly dopey smile behind his words, and Devi bites down on an overpowering urge to ask him what he’d just been remembering, ask him if he can take her there with him.

Instead, she says, “That’s been happening to me a lot lately.”

“What?”

“Forgetting.”

“Forgetting what?” he asks, an edge in his tone.

“I guess…everything high school.”

He frowns at her.

“Not _everything_ everything,” she reassures. “Just—what was your locker combination?”

“Twenty-seven, thirteen, thirty-two,” he says immediately. “Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten your combo, David.”

She sighs because, yeah, if she asked—he’d take her there.

Suddenly, she’s hyperaware of her heartbeat again, in her sinuses, in the heels of her feet, heavy in the pit of her stomach.

“Devi?” He tilts his head, eyes picking apart the expression on her face. She gulps, wondering what he finds there.

And suspecting she knows the answer, she closes her eyes. Takes in a deep breath, concentrates. “Forty-four, fifteen, twenty-three.”

“Huh?”

She opens her eyes. “My locker combo.”

He gives his head a jerky little shake. “Right.”

“You wanna go find someplace to sit down?” The question wobbles out of her, and she hates that about it. She’s not used to being tentative with him.

He licks his lips, presses them together, and Devi’s impressed for a second that he’s gonna be the one to draw a line in the sand. He’s never been very good at that.

Sure enough, a moment later, he nods at her. “Sounds nice.”

###

Devi follows Ben all the way across the parking lot to where there’s more grass than sand before she realizes where he’s leading her.

Sure enough, his car comes into view a moment later. It’s parked with the wheels in perfect alignment, and Devi looks up at him, grin on her face.

“I know what you’re about to say,” he says without looking back, “and so I want to point out that all jokes about my car ownership or driving habits have been made a million times before. They’re officially stale.”

“I don’t think you get to decide that,” she says.

“Oh, but you do?”

“Duh.”

“Typical.” He’s smiling when he says it, and it has the effect of a flashlight beam, lighting up the night around them.

_Thud, thud, thud_ goes her heart.

She swallows. “You want to know what else is typical?”

“What?”

She presses her beer into his hand before she takes off at a jog, flinging herself up onto the hood of his car when she’s close enough.

“Oh, come on,” Ben says. “Don’t do that.”

“It’s too late,” she says, dragging herself up against the windshield and tugging the skirt of her dress into place. “I’ve already done it.”

He crosses around the front of the car and comes to stand at the driver’s side, arm draped across the side-view mirror. He hands her the beer.

“Thanks,” she says, crossing her legs at the ankles and letting her head fall back.

“You’re gonna muck up the windshield,” he says, sounding pained.

She smiles, her eyes falling closed. “If you want me to stop making jokes, why do you insist on constantly setting me up?”

“It’s a safety hazard, Devi.”

She hates him for spending their formative years conditioning her to feel a thrill every time he uses her real name in a way that far more resembles fondness than hatred.

“Come up here, Ben.”

The stillness of the moment following her invitation catches up to her with an unpleasant wallop to her stomach. Her eyes pop open and she turns to look at him. He’s staring back, wide-eyed.

“I’m sorry, I—”

He shakes his head a little too hard and fast. “No, no, it’s not—” He catches himself, presses his lips tight for a moment. Finally, he says, “It’s not something to be sorry for.”

“Okay,” she says, not totally sure what she’s agreeing to but not wanting to sit there and interrogate the discomfort, either. She turns her attention back to the sky and takes a sip of beer.

“Do you remember,” Ben says after a few minutes, “that time you made me get stitches?”

She makes her face at the moon, not yet ready to look back at him. “Um, what?”

“It was in the third grade,” he says.

“Oh, my god, are you talking about Andrew Gunderson’s birthday party?”

“I am.”

She does turn to him then, and whacks him in the middle of his chest with the back of her hand. “I didn’t make you get stitches. I was nowhere near you when you tripped and fell into that stupid hunting game.”

“I know what I felt. And what I felt was you push me over.”

“Oh, yeah? Prove it.”

“Maybe someday.”

“Not likely. Your odds are decreasing as we speak.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees, smiling at her. “You know, that’s kinda what makes the science behind memory so interesting.”

“What, you mean you like the way you can be gaslit by your own recall?”

He laughs, tipping his head toward hers. “Maybe not the way I’d have phrased it, but yeah, actually, exactly that.”

She feels herself responding in kind, getting pulled into his orbit, and wrenches her eyes away from him before she fully falls into the sensation. Recalibrating herself to her own center of gravity takes her a second, and she pulls in a deep breath through her nose.

“I don’t see what’s so interesting about it,” she says finally. “Never being able to access your past as it really happened and how that makes each and every moment you live, like, hollow almost? That’s terrifying.”

“Well, it’s not like perception is a perfect measure of reality, either.”

She flings an arm over her forehead with a groan. “Why are you trying to give me an existential crisis?”

“I was under the impression you were already having one.”

She laughs. “Okay, yeah. I guess I kinda am.”

A moment later, the whole car dips, and Devi sits up quick, her head whirling. But it’s just Ben hoisting himself up onto the hood.

She settles again and watches with curious eyes as he gingerly scoots himself back until he’s leaning against the windshield beside her, chin tilted up toward the sky and feet planted flat. And she keeps watching—his throat bob as he swallows thickly, the muscle in his jaw pulling tight and releasing—until he turns and looks at her.

“When I remember this moment, I want to be able to do it from right here,” he says, answering her unspoken question.

Her heart rises up in her throat, looming like a wave stuck in the moment before it’s destined to crash.

Not wanting to tempt fate, to bring about the crash sooner than she’s ready for it, she returns her attention to the moon. And if she starts to tip sideways until her temple comes to rest tentatively against the curve of his shoulder, it’s only because she’s thinking about gravity and how she’s never been sure which one of them exerts more on the other.

He lets his knees fall apart and then brings them back together in time with his breathing, and they sit there like that for a long moment.

“I think,” she says finally, “I might be freaking out a little.”

“Stating the obvious,” he accuses, voice low and fond.

“Shut up.”

He laughs, all breathless and stilted, and she feels her smile start high in her cheeks.

“I’m just saying, if you want this conversation to go anywhere, you should tell me something I don’t know.”

“Easier said than done.”

She feels him shift, craning his neck to look down at her. “Holy shit, did you just admit that my knowledge is vast and superior to yours in every way?”

“Calm down, salutatorian,” she says, reaching up to plant her knuckles against his cheek and pushing his face away. The beer slops audibly around in the can, but doesn’t spill. “I was specifically talking about me. It’s hard to tell you something you don’t already know about _me_.”

He’s thoughtful for a moment. “That’s kinda even better.”

She scoffs. “How?”

“I don’t know, getting an A in my favorite subject is satisfying.”

“You’re so cheesy.”

“You love it,” he says.

They seem to realize at the same time how much they’re acting like they’re still a couple and, after letting chagrin burn through her like fire through paper, Devi reluctantly pulls herself off of him.

Still, she can’t help herself agreeing. “Yeah. I do.”

“Present tense?”

“Of course,” she says, sighing. She casts a sidelong glance at him. “Present tense…for forever probably.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Yeah, probably for me, too. Guess that’s the nice thing about feelings. They rarely erode the way memories do. They’re stubborn.”

She fixes her eyes on him as the whole world rotates around her. “Whoa.”

“What?”

She blinks.

“Devi,” he says, “what?”

“Shh,” she says, going to slap at where his arms are folded over his stomach and grabbing hold of one instead. “You’re interrupting my epiphany.”

“Causing it, more like,” he grumbles.

“Oh, my god. Are you happy with yourself?” she asks, giggles filling in some of the pockets between words. “It’s gone now.”

“Couldn’t have been a very good epiphany, then.”

She snorts, and then shifts into him, resting her head in the crook of his neck. “It was good.”

He slides his arm along her hand until they’re palm-to-palm. “I’ll take your word for it.”

She feels her heartbeat, there, tucked into the palm of his hand.

“Hey, Ben?” she says, several hundred heartbeats later.

“Yeah, Devi?” His voice is warm under her ear, and soft like it’s seconds from sleep.

“Do you want your jacket back?”

His shoulder shifts under her as he snorts a laugh. “Nah, that’s okay. It looks good on you.”

“Well, duh.”

“Okay.”

“Wait, no,” she says. “I’ve actually decided I’m gonna give it back.”

He shakes his head, and she feels the dusting of stubble around his jaw catching at her hair. “Why even ask?”

“Because I’m gonna take you up on your offer eventually,” she says. “But I’m also going to give you your jacket back right now.”

He hums. “This sounds complicated.”

“Not complicated,” she says. “You just have to fix it first.”

“You broke my jacket?” he asks, playful outrage totally undermined by the way his voice is still sleepy soft.

“I believe it’s technically my jacket now.”

“So, you don’t want me to take it back?”

“No, I do.”

“Is this a conversation or am I slowly getting sucked into a black hole?”

“I want you to make it smell less like McDonald’s, okay, Gross?”

He gives her hand a squeeze. “You can accomplish that by washing it.”

“Yeah,” she says, “but _you_ can accomplish it by wearing it everywhere for a month.”

“Okay, but it’s not just any month,” he says. “It’s specifically the month of June.”

“So?”

“So, I’m not wearing a denim jacket everywhere I go in eighty-degree weather.”

“Come on,” she says, pressing her face against his neck. “What about in your absurdly air-conditioned house.”

He hesitates, nothing to immediately volley back.

“Ha!” She pinches some skin between her teeth, and then releases when he squeaks, flinching. “I win.”

“Fine,” he says, making to sit up. “You monster.”

She grins, and then moves off of him, swinging her legs over the edge of the car and hopping down. “You love it.”

He’s standing right next to her a moment later. “Present tense forever.”

Their eyes lock and hold and then the wave finally comes crashing down.

“I should, uh, I should get going,” Ben says.

“You’re not gonna go back down?” she asks.

“Nah.” He looks away, rubs at the back of his neck. “Saw everyone I cared to see.”

“Right.” She nods, and then she’s handing him her mostly-empty beer can. “Um, hold this.”

He accepts it, and Devi shrugs off the jacket.

“You sure you don’t want to get it to me later?” he asks, watching a shiver work its way into her posture.

“Nope,” she says. “Now.”

He doesn’t argue, just hands off her drink as she passes him the jacket.

“Goodnight, Ben,” she says. “See you around, right?”

“I will have a very important delivery to make eventually,” he says, holding up the jacket.

She scoffs. “You’d better not let a whole month go by before you try and see me.”

He opens the door to his car, and the interior light casts his grin into shadowy depth. “Yeah, well. I’ve never been good at leaving well enough alone. You know that.”

“Yeah,” she says. “I do remember that about you.”

###

Even though she feels the absence of the jacket acutely, Devi is content to take her time walking back to the beach, letting herself get comfortable with how she feels in this moment. With everything she felt throughout high school. All the uncertainty and helplessness. All the hope and the love…the grief.

Somehow it always comes back to the grief.

Still, she finds the reminder hopeful, even as it punches the air from her lungs. Because she’s had her whole world turned on its head before, and she survived.

Maybe this time she can greet change like an old friend.

###

She finds Fabiola and Eleanor back in the original spot they’d staked out by the fire.

“Hey, guys.”

“Oh! Devi!” Eleanor flutters her hand at Devi. “You’re just in time. The Hot Pocket’s about to attempt to set off fireworks.”

“I really feel like we should confirm the existence of a nearby first aid kit before we let them go for it,” Fabiola says, shaking her head. Her eyes narrow when they land on Devi. “You’ve been gone a while.”

“Nothing happened,” Devi says, arching an eyebrow. “So you can stop with the judgement face.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious,” Devi says. “We talked, it was nice.”

“Oh, my god,” Eleanor says, slapping a hand over her mouth.

“What?” Devi asks, feeling her eyes widen.

“You’re not wearing the jacket anymore.”

She relaxes. “Yeah, because I gave it back to him.”

“He took it back?” Eleanor asks, tears pooling in her eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, because I gave it to him,” Devi says, enunciating pointedly.

“Well, I think that’s great,” Fabiola says.

“Yeah, really feeling the support from both of you,” Devi says.

Eleanor gives her a thumbs up.

Devi presses her lips together but can’t totally keep the smile off her face.

“You’re shivering,” Fabiola points out a moment later.

“Yeah, actually I’m pretty fucking cold now, so. You guys good to head out?”

“Oh, sure,” Eleanor says.

“Absolutely,” Fabiola agrees.

“So, El,” Devi says, passing Fabiola her keys as they make their way to the parking lot. “Did you make it all the way through _Heights_?”

Eleanor gasps. “No, I didn’t! Jonah came and found us.”

“Oh, no,” Devi says, snapping her fingers with mock regret. “I missed Jonah?”

Fabiola snorts. “Yes, thank god.”

“I’m nice to him,” Devi says, instantly defensive.

“Sure,” Fabiola says. “In a passive-aggressive, not-actually-nice way.”

Devi’s about to argue when a ground-shuddering _boom_ cracks through the air. The three of them turn in time to see an explosion of red fizzle in the sky and then fall out of existence.

“Whoa,” Devi says.

“Come on,” Fabiola says. “This, like, exponentially increases the odds of this party getting busted.”

“You know what?” Eleanor says as they start walking again. “This perfectly sets the stage for ‘Blackout’.”

“Eleanor,” Fabiola says. “You already did the act one finale.”

“ _Perfectly sets the stage_ , Fab!”

“Aw,” Devi says. “Just let her do it. I didn’t get to see it earlier.”

“Cause you were off making out with Ben,” Fabiola says.

“We were not making out,” Devi tells her.

Eleanor starts to sing. “ _¿Oye, qué pasó?_ ”

“You promise?” Fabiola asks.

Devi rolls her eyes. “Yes.”

“Good,” Fabiola says. “Because I think you made the right decision, and I hate to see you keep making that harder on yourself.”

Devi loops her arm through Fabiola’s. “You’re a good friend, Fab.”

“Thank you.”

“But you’re also, like, a total hypocrite, and I will not be accepting feedback on my relationship with Ben, from you, at this time.”

“What? I’m not a—”

“Eve,” Eleanor and Devi say at the same time.

Fabiola untangles herself from Devi and unlocks the car. “Okay! I get it.”

Devi slides into her passenger seat, and Eleanor takes the back, still singing. While Fabiola adjusts the mirrors, Devi turns to watch Eleanor go, which of course makes Eleanor play to her aggressively.

Devi smiles. “How do you keep all the character voices different?”

Eleanor doesn’t stop, but she does waggle her eyebrows between lines.

“Buckle up,” Fabiola says to them. “We’re blowing this popsicle stand.”

Devi rights herself in her seat and clicks the buckle into place before closing her eyes. She feels the car start to move under her, watches the changing light play on the back of her eyelids as they pull out onto the street. Listens to Eleanor’s voice weave a tale she’s heard dozens of times before. Fabiola rolls down her window and suddenly Devi can taste the night air, clean and sharp.

She opens her mouth, trying to catch more of it on her tongue, and smiles. Part of her is always gonna remember what it feels like to be this alive.


End file.
